Triple J

All posts in the Triple J category

Yeah I know, I shouldn’t bite. But I did. On Facebook of all places. I jumped on into the debate about “Obesity in Australia” set up by the Triple J Hack programme. Frances from Corpulent/Hey Fat Chick and Dr Samantha Thomas (love you two!) were both on the radio programme yesterday afternoon (did an amazing job, go listen) talking about the stigmatisation of fat people.

So I won’t go into all the deets about the discussion, it’s mostly the same “But what about your health!!??” malarkey that we always get. However, I do want to talk about a repeat message or sterotype that I kept seeing from those who were vehemently anti-fat.

That repeat message? That fat people just sit around all day eating.

It seems that is the exact image that many people have of fat people. We just sit around all the time, doing nothing but eating, and usually eating something laden with sugar or fat. There is also an assumption that fat people have never ever heard of dieting, have no knowledge of nutrition, and don’t know anything about exercising.

It’s not just in this particular case either. I see it come up over and over and over. It came up during the John Birmingham thing. I was reading an article on ABC the Drum some months back about “obesity stigma” and a commenter said “I feel sorry for fat people, their lives must be so boring, all they do is just SIT.”

Where on earth to these people get these ideas about fat people? Well, television and movies mostly. The fat character is almost always portrayed as some lonely fatty, at home shoving food in their face. Then there’s the headless fatty footage of fatties sitting on park benches or in fast food joints. The print media sell that image too.

I don’t know about you, but getting the luxury of time to “just sit” is pretty bloody rare in my life. Even while I’m on holiday at the moment, I’m keeping pretty busy, when I really should be spending time “just sitting” a little more.

So how do we go about changing this perception of fat people? How do we get the message out that fat people are no different to anyone else? That we live our lives the same as anyone else? We work, we go to school, we care for families, we spend time with friends, we shop, we laugh, we have hobbies, we play sports, we dance, we actually live full lives that are the same as non-fat people live. The only difference is that our bodies are fat.

Posts navigation

Notice

Anyone who trolls this blog with hateful messages and bullying of fat people will have those comments, along with their IP addresses, email addresses and any other details sent to their mothers, employers, school administration and other people I can track down in their lives.

Fabulous Fat Positive Blogs

by Lindsey Schuhmacher, MAWhen I was a teenager, I lived with my older sister. We had an oversized magnet on the fridge that said “Eat, Drink, and be Fat and Drunk.” We thought it was funny. In some ways, I still do. It sets you up for one thing, but then surprises you with an irreverent version instead. But now I see things other than humor in it. I recogni […]

Like many children, a nine year old boy in North Caroline went to visit Santa and share his Christmas list. Unlike most children, this Santa lacked the self-control to keep is size-based bigotry in check and couldn’t let the boy go without fat-shaming him.Anthony Mayse, 9, asked for an iPod Touch and a drone for Christmas when he was allegedly fat-shamed.“Wh […]

In my last post, I gave a brief portrait of what trolling looks like when it comes my way, and how the rules of civility tend to punish activists in favor of trolls. I want to revisit last night’s Facebook incident because it’s still going on. This Facebook page is a well-known radical feminist forum, […]via Dead of Winter http://ift.tt/2hnbr1Y

In the past few months I've had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with an entirely new group of women because of my transfer at work. It began with moving from the Soo to Sudbury and transferring from downtown to the north end cemented it. It has been a pleasure and an honour to hear their stories, to be trusted in this way, an effortless connection t […]

Stacy Bias is an absolute badass. You may remember her from her Cards Against Humanity expansion pack – Fats Against Humanity, and her amazing Rad Fatty Merit Badges. Well she is back with a documentary animation that perfectly captures the difficulty faced by fat people who are trying to access air travel.Stacy explains:Flying is uncomfortable for many peo […]

I just want to put my head in my hands. I value civility. I value extending the olive branch and hearing different ideas. But I also value being blunt, being effective, setting boundaries, breaking out of the echo chamber. Well, guess what? I’m just about out of olive branches. I’m about ready to play dirty […]via Dead of Winter http://ift.tt/2gRMkaA

Delos “Toby” Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, was recently selected by Trump to join an advisory committee that, according to a news release by the administration”brings together CEOs and business leaders who know what it takes to create jobs and drive economic growth. My administration is committed to drawing on private sector expertise and cutting th […]

Care providers often push "obese" women to lose weight before pregnancy in hopes that weight loss will reduce complications and make for a healthier pregnancy.However, one consequence they often fail to consider is that the woman who loses weight before pregnancy often gains excessively during pregnancy.This is logical; the body thinks it is starvi […]

One of the ways that weight-based bigotry is perpetuated is the use of fat people and being fat as metaphor. Recently reader Jen commented about a situation where this was happening to her and gave me permission to blog about it.I am the only fat person, in a group of 14 people, for whom issues like alcoholism, drug abuse and domestic partner violence seem […]

“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me” is a lie. To someone who’s being bullied verbally, as long as the bullying never crosses that line, it can be a helpful lie. You tell yourself words can’t hurt you, and reinforce that you aren’t defined by the bully’s opinion of you. You don’t let their poison into your heart, and because y […]